Alfred Isn't Sure What's Going On
by Fourteen Hundred Hours
Summary: Miss O'Brien and Alfred have a couple of heart to hearts on the subjects of work, love, and drink. With quotes from the Hacker T Dog. Starts off sillier than it ends.


**After spending stumbling across a video of Hacker T Dog (of CBBC) serenading Sue Barker at Wimbledon, Lavender and Hay remarked on how like Miss O'Brien he was. Cue this fic, where I have endeavoured to get as many of Hacker's quotes in.**

**I do not own Downton Abbey, or Hacker. Just so's you know.**

Sarah O'Brien had seen Alfred talk to the policemen. She knew what the boy had done at once- and for a few minutes feared her secret would be out. If Alfred snitched to the police on Thomas, what would Thomas say to them about her? As soon as Alfred drew away and headed back she excused herself and hurried over.

"What was all that about?" she asked, with just a hint of menace in her voice.

"Oh, er, nothing." Alfred had the decency to look slightly embarrassed.

"That didn't look like nothing. Tell me."

"Well, I might have called the coppers on Mr Barrow by mistake."

"How do you manage to do that?" O'Brien thought it best to distance herself from the whole affair.

"I had been…drinking, and misunderstood a situation. But it's okay, nothing bad happened! And I'm not in trouble for calling the police out or anything." Alfred hurriedly explained.

"Drinking? Are you sick lad?! That'll rot your brain. You should know better." O'Brien, assured she was no longer in any danger, turned her attention to the apparent deviant ways of her nephew.

"What? There's nothing wrong with a bit of a drink. That's why there's a wine-"

"I know that. But you're too young. You should take better care of yourself. And imagine what your mother would say." O'Brien tried to sound reasonable.

"She'd understand! She wouldn't get all worked up. Mind you, you don't sound too angry." O'Brien's reasonable tone obviously wasn't working.

"I don't mind telling you I'm livid here! At your age you have one drink and suddenly you're all 'Y'all right cockers!' and ' Would you look at that car-It's so shiny I find it intimidating!'."

"I never-" Alfred tried to interject but O'Brien was in full flow.

"Or you might think it's a good idea to start talking to some poor girl. You'll only embarrass yourself you know, what with the 'I'm a footman you know' and 'ooooh, Susan'". O'Brien wasn't sure where exactly she was going with that last one so stopped. "Don't let me have to talk to you about this again." She finished. She could see Alfred was going to question her about what she'd just said, so made her excuses.

"Now if you'll excuse me I have to go see to her Ladyship." O'Brien swept off leaving behind a very confused Alfred.

The afternoon was coming to an end when Alfred managed to find his Aunt. She was sitting apart from everyone else, having a sneaky smoke. She looked up when he approached and narrowed her eyes at him.

"I can't speak to you with that hat on."

Alfred fumbled for his cap and pulled it off. "I quite liked it. Daisy said it looked very smart."

"Did she now?" O'Brien tried to sound like she was interested.

"Mind you, Mr Carson said it looked a bit evil." Alfred sat down and was silent for a moment, staring down at his cap. "Jimmy's been made First Footman." He finally said.

"Yes, I heard about that. Don't worry, it won't last." O'Brien was already plotting on how best to promote Alfred.

"Jimmy's a good footman. He doesn't drop things, or forget things or-"

"He's a baboon." O'Brien took a drag on her cigarette. "Baboon's get nowhere in life."

"I wouldn't say he's a baboon exactly." Alfred said. His aunt was behaving very oddly today. Maybe she was ill? She had looked very flushed when he was speaking to the police.

"He's a baboon. You can do better than he ever will. You are a lion." O'Brien's thoughts wandered momentarily to a man she referred to in her mind as 'The Lion'. "Lions do well in life."

"Oh. Thanks. So what's Mr Barrow then? Is he a baboon or lion?" Alfred wondered if this was a joke he should be playing along with. O'Brien didn't really want to comment on Thomas at the moment.

"Person." She said after a while. "He's just a person." Yes, it made a sort of sense to her now. "Lion, baboon, and person." She was shocked to discover she's almost sung those words. Maybe the heat was getting to her.

"Are you okay?" Alfred asked in concern.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine." O'Brien cast her eyes around looking for a change of subject. "Look at old Mr Phillips over there. He looks like he's got carrots strapped to his trousers."

"I've never seen a man wear orange trousers before. Is that a new fashion?" Alfred hoped it wasn't- how anyone could wear those and not be laughed at he didn't know.

"I should bloody hope not. They're giving me a headache even at this distance." O'Brien stubbed her cigarette out. "You'd better go back to work- you don't want Mr Carson to think you're work-shy, do you? You'll never get ahead of Jimmy at that rate."

"I've been thinking." Alfred tracked down O'Brien late that evening in the servants hall.

"Oh yes? And what have you been thinking about?"

"I don't think I've got any chance against Jimmy. He's spent the last few hours talking about this new 'portable storage solution' and I didn't have a clue what it actually was!"

"He's using fancy words for a box" O'Brien had used that one herself a couple of times.

"Oh." Alfred nodded forlornly.

"Was there anything else?" O'Brien could sense there was more coming.

"Jimmy isn't just better at being a footman, he's also better at being… at being a man."

"What do you mean?"

"It's just all the maids seem to quite fancy him, and he doesn't seem to even care that much." Alfred sounded exasperated. "It's just not-" he broke off, not wanting to sound like he was whining.

"It's just not fair." O'Brien finished for him. "Don't pay any attention to the maids- they wouldn't know a good man if he did a song and dance on this very table. Just think- you're better than him, Alfred. And the right girl may take some time to appear." O'Brien once again thought of 'The Lion'. She didn't know it, but a far-off look had appeared in her eye and her usually harsh expression had softened somewhat. She suddenly snapped back to the present.

"What are you doing still here? You need your sleep. Go on, off to bed." She stood up herself just to reinforce her point and watched as Alfred walked away.

"The right girl may take some time to appear?" O'Brien jumped, and turned to see Mrs Hughes standing in the doorway. "I could say the same for the right man. Sometimes they take a while to turn up, but when they do it's worth the wait."

And for one rare, unique moment, Mrs Hughes and Miss O'Brien understood each other perfectly.

**By the by, 'The Lion' is Gene Hunt, cos I ship him and O'Brien ****. I put a little hint of Carson/Hughes at the end there for Lavender and Hay- that one's for you, bro!**

**Apologies to anyone reading this who is also waiting for me to update other fics- I am still continuing with them, they're just taking forever to write. This one was a bit spontaneous- I only realised I'd written it once it was done. Thank you, faithful reader!**


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